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Simi Valley, CA, psych-punks the Humane Society formed in 1965 as the Innocents — featuring singer/guitarist Danny Wheetman, lead guitarist Jim Pettit, rhythm guitarist Woody Minnick, bassist Richard Majewski, and drummer Bill Schnetzler, the band was discovered by producers Dick Torst and Dick Parker while performing on a flatbed truck parked outside a local record store. The Humane Society’s debut single, “Tiptoe Through the Tulips With Me” — recorded just prior to Tiny Tim’s smash novelty rendition — appeared on Liberty Records in the spring of 1967 and was a hit in Los Angeles, but it was the flip side, “Knock, Knock,” for which the group is justly celebrated: a savage, disarmingly visceral slab of proto-punk genius, in 1998 it was immortalized on the first Nuggets box set. After Liberty rejected a proposed follow-up, the Humane Society landed at New World for their second single, 1968’s “Lorna” — the record received scant attention, and the band dissolved soon after. |
